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Monday, April 16, 2018

Germany: Rappers who call for “another Holocaust” win top music award

A German-Jewish leader condemned a music award given to two popular rappers as a “devastating” example of the normalcy of anti-Semitism in today’s society.

Kollegah and Bang won the top Echo Music Award in the hip-hop category for an album whose lyrics boast of physiques “more defined that those of Auschwitz inmates” and call for “another Holocaust; let’s grab the Molotov” cocktails.

Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community of Munich and Bavaria, was one of numerous public figures in Germany who criticised the award. The ceremony took place in Berlin on 12 April, which also was the annual Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day.

The album, whose title in English is “Young, Brutal, Good Looking 3,” won the best of Hip-Hop/Urban, National award.

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When Focus magazine asked the artists how they viewed the criticism, they responded by joking about their failure to work out before the ceremony.